Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 11/6/13

Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 11/6/13

Isa 37:31  And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward:

There is a blast, a terrible onslaught of spirits that will try to cause everyone here to give surrender to the enemy.  There would be those that would think that the blast is only against the young, but it is loosed against everyone.  It is an old battle.  The enemy worked it on Hezekiah and it has come against every one of the saints of yore.

Every once in a while, we get slapped right in the face with whatever it is that would like to get us to give up, sent from the enemy.  If we haven’t gotten rid of whatever it is that starts with self: self-pity, self-pride, self-consciousness, etc. it will just bloom up and cause us to want to give up.

We need to do as Hezekiah did and start to seek God.  Hezekiah also sought help from Isaiah.

Isa 37:1  And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.

Isa 37:2  And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, unto Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

Isa 37:3  And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

Isa 37:4  It may be the LORD thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left.

Isa 37:5  So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

Hezekiah saw that it was the enemy that was trying to bring rebuke and blaspheme the true God of Israel.  He wanted Isaiah to know that there was not strength to bring forth.  There were those that had a desire to stand but did not have strength to do it. 

This is what God told Isaiah to tell Hezekiah and all that were in Jerusalem.

Isa 37:6  And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say unto your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

Isa 37:7  Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

Behold I will send a blast upon him.

Some of you may be rejoicing and resting from the battle; we will not take from you that rest.  We are in a real battle and we are being blasted by unbelief and are blasted by the spirit of the beast, the image, and the eighth beast. 

Some of you dear saints may have individuals that write to you like some of them have written to me in the past of how I was going to die and how apostate I was.  I went through it and I burned those letters.  I just wish I had understood Hezekiah in Isaiah 37 then. 

One thing we want to remember is that God is still in control.  Everyone that is saved and sanctified will feel the blast of the enemy.  We would like to protect the young and the aged from the blast of the enemy.  We will not be able to because the enemy has no respect for any soul.

Whether it was a spirit, an individual, a letter, or one of those things when an individual picked you apart and picked apart all the saints, dig past whatever rock is there that would try to get you to surrender, dig past that and get a hold of the nugget, get a hold of the gold that is there in the Word of God.

I wish the first few years after we were saved we would have written down all the promises that God gave us.  It is a wonderful thing, we rejoice, God gives us promises, we get our eyes up, we are headed to heaven, we are saved, we are consecrated, and the only thing we know is that we are going to go deeper with Christ. 

The day you get the promise is a wonderful thing.  The day that you hold onto the promise through the blast and say, “I don’t know how long that this blast will last, but I will hold onto the promise and God will bring me through.”

“Standing on the promises…” I probably started singing this song when I was five years old before I could read it.  The man that wrote this song wrote it right after he got saved.  He thought, “I have it, I have the song and I have the victory.”  But He drifted.

We live in a time when it is easy to drift and not be as ardent for God as God would like us to be. 

God was faithful and allowed the writer of the song to get very ill.  As he was facing death he realized, “Here I am now in terrible shape.  God gave me the promises and I have drifted.”  He went home and said, “Mom I have failed God; help me to get this right.” 

He prayed, “Dear God, when you were so good to save me and give me promises, I drifted.  I excelled in many things but not in kneeology.”  God began to work with him and to help him.  Those promises and that song came back to him. 

“Standing on the promises.”  Here I am dying, what is the promise?  Call for the elders let them anoint with oil and pray the prayer of faith and God will heal. 

He found out there was someone not too far away that believed in divine healing.  He took a train and said, “I don’t deserve to be healed, but I am here for you to pray for me.”  God came back with the promise again and healed his body.

When we get the promise, hold onto it.

Isa 37:8  So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

Isa 37:9  And he heard say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He is come forth to make war with thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

Isa 37:10  Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Isa 37:11  Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered?

Isa 37:12  Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar?

Isa 37:13  Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?

We have conquered others we will conquer you.

It is an old story, “Others have failed we will fail.”  You don’t have to fail.  You don’t have to be untrue to God.  You don’t have to give into the enemy.  You can conquer.

Isa 37:14  And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up unto the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

Isa 37:15  And Hezekiah prayed unto the LORD, saying,

Isa 37:16  O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth.

Isa 37:17  Incline thine ear, O LORD, and hear; open thine eyes, O LORD, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God.

Isa 37:18  Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries,

Isa 37:19  And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.

Isa 37:20  Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD, even thou only.

Hezekiah went to the temple and said, “Look at this God.”  We are in desperate shape and we need help from God.

There is something about the blast, because we are human, usually when we are attacked, when someone opens a rifle upon us and does their best to shoot us through with holes, we take it personally.  We need to get that dug out.  We don’t want to make it all about us; we want to make it all about God.

Isa 37:21  Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria:

Isa 37:22  This is the word which the LORD hath spoken concerning him; The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.

Isa 37:23  Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah said, “The people of God are trusting in God.”  Anytime anyone rises up against God, God knows it.

Isa 37:24  By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of his Carmel.

The enemy rants and raves. 

Isa 37:25  I have digged, and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.

Isa 37:26  Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.

Isa 37:27  Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.

Isa 37:28  But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.

Isa 37:29  Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

Isaiah said, “God has set the limits and the time.  God knows where the king is and God knows the rage.  I have a hook ready for him.  It is going to go into his nose and God will take care of him and keep him back from destroying Israel.  God has his hook ready, God has the turnaround ready.

Everyone here says, “I want God to purge us and clean us up.”  We want more worship and more of God in our service than we have ever had before.  We want to face whatever battle. 

If we will take root down and bear fruit up then God will work it.  God will bring the enemy to an end. 

You may wonder how long will someone be on their high horse.  How long will they thrust their elbow at us?  Those ugly spirits that want to cow us down.  There is a time limit.  Anyone that is haughty and proud God has set a time limit and has the hook ready for them.  When He puts the hook in someone’s nose all the puff and the rough goes out.

Isa 37:30  And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the second year that which springeth of the same: and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.

This is only going to go on so long.

Isa 37:31  And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward:

Isa 37:32  For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.

God’s people will take root downward and bear fruit upward.  God’s zeal works the wonder which is the miracle of us getting our roots downward.

God destroyed 185,000 of them in one night.  God did it.  God took care of it.  He took care of the king.

Isa 37:37  So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

Isa 37:38  And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia: and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

Receiving the promises of the Word of God is marvelous.  When you get a promise from God it is marvelous.  His name is “wonderful.”  It means He is the miracle working God.  When God gives you a promise then get a hold of it and never let it go. 

Standing on the promise in the test puts our roots down.  The blast will come and when it hits you and when it hits me, may God help us to realize this storm has come and I can do one of two things: either surrender or put my roots down.

There are rocks that need to come out.  I have measured to whatever God has shown me but I want fertile soil.  The rocks of hindrances must be removed.  Everything that is hyphenated with self must be removed.  The roots must go deep in the Word of God and grasp the promises.  The gold in the Word of God is there and must be gotten.  The Rock of Ages must be gripped. 

Receive the promises in our early stages of spiritual growth.  Make your promise book, “God gave me this promise.”  Perfect the promises with the challenges of life.

The heathen king was Hezekiah and the Children of Israel’s enemy.  What is my enemy?  The Laodicean spirit lulls me.  What can I do to blast it?  Hold faith in the promises.